Northwood men’s basketball coach Jeff Rekeweg was extremely pleased with his team’s effort in a 24-point exhibition loss at Michigan State last week. On Saturday, Rekeweg was equally displeased with his Timberwolves’ effort in a three-point exhibition win over Calvin College.

NU rallied from an early nine-point deficit, took a slim lead into halftime, then held on for dear life in the final minutes to edge the Knights 69-66 in the Timberwolves’ final exhibition game at Riepma Arena.

Rekeweg noted that his team’s role was flip-flopped on Saturday, as the Timberwolves were the favorite against Division III Calvin after being a heavy underdog on Oct. 27 at Michigan State.

“That is a well-coached team, and they have a lot of history and guys who can play,” he said of Calvin. “It’s similar to the situation we had at Michigan State. They (Calvin) came out here and had something to prove (just as we had something to prove at MSU).

“ ... We talked before the game that we’re going to see where our maturity is. We go from playing a top-15 team in the country in Division I, the highest level, to playing a Division III team. Let’s see where our mentality is. This is going to be a test for us,” he added. “And I would give us a ‘C’ at best for how we handled it.”

Calvin senior forward Cam Denney shot 9 of 11 from the floor, including 5 of 6 from 3-point range, to finish with a game-high 23 points, enabling the Knights to keep it close throughout. Northwood countered with junior center Matt Crowl, who had career highs with 14 points and 11 rebounds, while Brad Schaub also scored 14 with seven boards for the Timberwolves.

Meanwhile, NU sophomore forward Zach Allread, who is expected to be one of the Timberwolves’ top players, was held scoreless on 0-of-4 shooting, and starting point guard Jarel Woolridge finished with one point after going 0 of 6 from the floor.

“Matt (Crowl) had a really good game, a really good first half. ... I thought his effort was really good, and he was pretty efficient,” Rekeweg said. “ ... If we come out of a game with a win while somebody like Zach Allread and Rel (Woolridge) both go 0-for from the field, I feel pretty fortunate.”

The Knights came out of the gate hot, hitting five of their first eight shots, while NU missed seven of its first nine shots and committed three early turnovers, allowing Calvin to build an 18-7 lead. Then, as the Knights began to cool off, the Timberwolves began to heat up. Northwood got 3-pointers from four different players in a 22-8 run which gave the Timberwolves a 29-26 lead late in the first half.

The teams traded leads four more times over the next couple of minutes, and NU went on to take a 36-35 edge into the break.

Schaub and Crowl both scored five points to key a 10-2 Northwood run early in the second half, making it 49-41. The Timberwolves were never able to pull away, though, as Calvin slowly but surely chipped away at that deficit, eventually cutting it to 65-63 on a triple by Denney with 1:59 to play.

NU junior guard Nick Spitzley, who struggled mightily to hit a shot for most of the game, answered with four big points to stem the tide. First, Spitzley drained a pull-up jumper in the lane, and then, following a steal by Woolridge, Spitzley was fouled and hit both free throws to make it 69-63 with 1:05 remaining.

Denney came right back with his fifth 3-pointer of the game to slice it to 69-66 with 58 seconds to go. And after Schaub missed a layup on the other end, Nick Kronemeyer grabbed the rebound for Calvin, and the Knights called a timeout to set up a potential game-tying play with 17 seconds left.

Coming out of the break, Michael Wilks got open for a 3-pointer, but his shot caromed off the back iron. Nate Drews rebounded for the Knights, but his desperation off-balance 3-point shot drifted well wide as time expired.

Rekeweg, who had instructed his players to foul Calvin when the clock got under 10 seconds, said the Timberwolves dodged a bullet.

“We’ve worked on those (situations in practice), but we just didn’t execute it, and they got a pretty good look at that first 3,” Rekeweg said.

Rekeweg added that his team has room for improvement on both ends of the court after allowing the Knights to shoot above average from the floor and to score 25 points off of 15 NU turnovers.

“The things that I’m sure (MSU) Coach (Tom) Izzo was frustrated and upset with Michigan State about (when we played them) as far as effort and execution are exactly what I’m not happy about today,” he noted. “Not that we took Calvin lightly, but we didn’t have a great practice yesterday, and on some of the things we talked about defensively, we had breakdowns.

“And, offensively, we hurried things,” he added. “We had horrendous passes. I just got done watching third- and fourth-grade basketball at the community center, and there were better passes there than what we had today. ... (We committed) 15 turnovers that cost us 25 points. You don’t often win games doing that.”

Calvin shot 46 percent (25 of 54) from the floor overall and 42 percent (8 of 19) from long range, while Northwood shot 39 percent (25 of 65) overall and only 32 percent (8 of 25) from beyond the arc.

However, the Timberwolves outrebounded the Knights 41-32 overall, including 13-3 on the offensive end, leading to a 10-2 advantage in second-chance points.

Spitzley finished with 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting for NU, while David Jelinek had nine points and five boards, and Jure Prus also scored nine.

“They shot 46 percent overall, which, obviously, we’re not pleased with, and 42 percent from 3,” Rekeweg said. “And it’s more about the breakdowns that allowed open shots. We’ll live with some of the tough ones they made or the contested ones they made. It’s the open ones (that bother me).

“ ... We saw some good things leadership-wise (from a few players today),” he added. “But we just need to have more consistency from everybody.”

Northwood will open its regular season by hosting the GLIAC/GLVC Challenge next weekend. The Timberwolves will face St. Joseph’s on Friday at 6 p.m., then will take on Bellarmine on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.